Hannah, who spoke from her hospital
bed, said that the herdsman attacked them with machete after threatening them
with a gun.
The men were alleged to be four
initially, but three bolted when Hannah started screaming after one of the men
wielding a rifle, attacked her mother.
Hannah and her mother, Patricia, are
presently in hospital, battling to stay alive after the herdsman inflicted
machete cuts injuries on them.
While Hannah sustained deep machete
cuts on the forehead and right hand, Patricia 52, had a deeper cut on her
forehead and sported a left ear almost completely chopped off.
The incident occurred around 9am
last week Monday while the victims were working in their cassava farm located
close to a plantain plantation along the Benin-Okada-Ore-Lagos Expressway.
Patricia, like a lioness, was said
to have struggled with the gunman, trying to wrestle his rifle from him.
Immediately the struggle started, Hannah started screaming and the other three
herdsmen bolted, fearful that Hannah’s cries would attract attention and make
them to be found out.
Hannah would later rush home to
alert family members and residents at their quarter on Redeemed Church road,
Ofunwengbe. Mother and daughter were rushed to a nearby hospital for treatment.
Recollecting the attack that led to
her admission in hospital, Patricia said: “Herdsmen led cattle into my two
acres of cassava and destroyed all the crops, after which they ran away. When
this happened, I went to my landlord and begged him to meet the leaders of the herdsmen
in the community.
“When we got there, we met their
leader, Jubrin. He followed us to the farm. He was shocked at the destruction.
He promised to call his people to find out what happened in the farm. They all
denied being responsible for the destruction. I went to the police station to
report the matter. Police followed me to the farm. Police were also shocked at
the level of the destruction.”
She said that the Divisional Police
Officer (DPO) in the area, asked the leader of the herdsmen to bring one of the
persons, suspected to have carried out the act, to the station.
She said: “Jubrin brought two men to
the station. If you count Jubrin with the two men, they would be three. The DPO
asked me to identify among the three men, those that led cattle into my farm. I
told him that the suspect was not among them. Jubrin said that the two persons
were involved in the cassava destruction and that they caught one Alhaji Yellow
as one of them.
“But after police checked, they
couldn’t get anyone. We had to go for the arrest of the said Alhaji Yellow. But
when we reached the police station, Yellow and the policemen started speaking
Hausa language which I don’t understand. At the end of it all, the police said
that it was not Yellow that committed the crime. They released him. Police said
we should go and settle the matter amicably. I was in my house when Jubrin came
and told me that police asked us to settle. I told him that they should pay me
N400, 000, but Jubrin dropped N25, 000 on the floor. I insisted we must go to
the police station to settle the matter. Jubrin later promised to balance N15,
000, but I called the police who asked us to come to their station. Jubrin
called me to say that he had deployed three persons to guard my farm against
further incursions.”
Patricia further narrated: “He asked
me if I had not gone to the farm? And he kept asking me this until I became suspicious.
We now resolved the matter at Iguobazuwa on Saturday.”
She said: “On Monday, I went to the
farm with my daughter. As we were working, I didn’t know somebody was inside
the farm, hiding under the palm tree. Suddenly I noticed a man with a gun and
he said, madam, ‘I will shoot you.’ We begged him and then I struggled with
him, trying to take the gun from him. The man fell down, and then he pushed me
down. As I fell, my daughter rushed towards us, the man cut my daughter with
his machete. He also used the machete to cut my ear and forehead.
“It was God who saved my daughter and
I, because we were covered in blood. We were all weak. The man ran away and my
daughter picked his gun. I shouted, nobody was in the bush. People later came
and took us to the hospital and later to the police station. We handed over the
gun to the police.”
Hannah, who corroborated her
mother’s explanations, denied there was an attempt by the herdsman to rape
them.
Mr. Emmanuel Toweh, 63, Patrician’s
husband, thanked God for saving his wife and daughter from the herdsman.
Emmanuel said: “I was not at home
when the incident happened. I got home and found crowd of people in my
compound. The shock and pains were too much, but fortunately, it was not more
than that. At least nobody died. If it had gone beyond that, I don’t know what
I would have done.”
Confirming the incident, the Edo
State Commissioner of Police, Mr. Babatunde Kokumo, said that the command was
investigating the matter. He vowed that justice would be done quickly in the
case.
He added: “The woman was brought
before me today. We are looking at a way to ensure justice is done speedily.”
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